Sunday, April 21, 2013

If you are or were ever in the restaurant industry you likely heard the stereotype in the title, but someone decided to test it to see if it was true. It appears to be, in one study so far. Is it a big surprise that it's on Sundays when this effect predominates? If you've read Freakonomics, remember the perverse incentives in the Israeli childcare center? If you haven't read it (or have and forgot) - the childcare center had trouble with people arriving late to pick up their kids. So they started charging people money per unit time - and the late arrival rates skyrocketed! Because (apparently) now people felt better about being late since they could pay up, and get their moral bank account out of the red and back to even again. (More details here.) There's a similar effect with priming people to think positive or negative thoughts about themselves (if you think positive thoughts, you aren't as altruistic).

The lesson here is a generalizable one, that all of us humans are vulnerable to this effect.

That said, and you should come to the SDNA Creek to Bay Cleanup in Sorrento Valley on Saturday 4/27 (details here), because you're an awful bad person and the least you can do is help clean up San Diego. Hey, I kid!